"4-3-2-1-Launch Piston."

[backyard]

Remember the locomotive piston blown through the roof of the house
in Independence, Iowa April of 2008?

Here is a webpage entry dedicated to the story at Cargo Law.com

You may have to scroll down the page, about 3/4 down....to the title & the picture of the hole in the roof...

A picture of the locomotive was also submitted & is included on the page.

The article is titled "4-3-2-1-Launch Piston."

Specs of the locomotive & links to builders websites are included, as is the photo of the piston stuck in the ceiling of the living room.
The webpage is part of the Cargo Letter, sponsored by a the The Law Offices of Countryman & McDaniel

 

[Euphod]

Enjoyed reading it, and other articles there, nice site, thanks!

 

[UP5521]

Man, that is bad I did not know that Diesel locomotives could lose a cylinder that way.

 

[UP5521]

Can someone please tell me how in the world any locomotive can do that?
Thanks!

 

[cascaderailroad]

http://www.railpictures.net/images/d1/1/9/4/7194.1092019080.jpg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYpXwLg5GeM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mg6lqWijsb4

It does...because it CAN !
A loco can suffer catastrophic engine failure, bust a crankshaft, snap the hold down bolts, blow a piston to high heavens...and Kabloooooie ! It can...becase it has the explosive POWER of highly compressed, ignited diesel fuel vapors, contained under a cylinder head ! Every piston stroke is a controlled explosion !

 

[UP5521]

thanks for clearing that up but it does seem funny that happens on a locomotive that is on one train but it is not when someone is currently living in that house and then having part of the roof destroyed by a piece of a locomotive and I do agree it does take alot of force for that to happen.

 

[backyard]

...to tell you the truth...

...I still don't believe it myself....

I can see the head blown off, but the piston rod bearing cap letting go & launching the piston into the air, that's another story...

Flame-out is usually a turbocharger failure.

 

[cascaderailroad]

Propelled through the air

Here is an unrelated story:

Title: Southern Railway Company, Train 154, Derailment with Fire and Explosion, Laurel, Mississippi, January 25, 1969.
NTSB Report Number: RAR-, adopted on 10/06/1969
NTIS Report Number: PB-190208

http://bulk.resource.org/courts.gov/c/F2/501/501.F2d.94.73-3057.html

The boiling liquid expanding vapour explosion (BLEVE):

"Nighmare in Laurel" (Mississippi) Was a story featured in Readers Digest...Train #154 rumbled across a RR crossing, through the sleeping town, during a steady downpour of rain. Within minutes after the first wheel fractured and derailed, the entire town was aflame. Numerous 32,000 gal LPG tank cars exploded, 17 in all, and one was propelled like a flaming missile 1000 ft in the air, where it crashed 1/4 mile away into a residential neighborhod, where numerous houses throughout the entire town became immediately engulfed in an inferno. One freight car wheelset was launched 1/4 mile, and came crashing through the roof of a sleeping familys bedroom, crashing through the 2nd and 1st floors of the house, and ended up in the basement. The story was pages, and pages long...

 

[UP5521]

It is now wonder why a train explodes like a nuclear bomb when it is transporting dangerous goods like the one that happened in NC. or SC.{I don't know where,but it did happen] involving two trains and everybody had to move to higher ground because of this.Then you have problems with a locomotive like a lost piston that we went over earlier in this post but now you know the consequences for transporting dangerous goods like chemicals that can be deadly if you are not careful!

 

[Sampug394]

Here is an unrelated story:

Title: Southern Railway Company, Train 154, Derailment with Fire and Explosion, Laurel, Mississippi, January 25, 1969.
NTSB Report Number: RAR-, adopted on 10/06/1969
NTIS Report Number: PB-190208

http://bulk.resource.org/courts.gov/c/F2/501/501.F2d.94.73-3057.html

The boiling liquid expanding vapour explosion (BLEVE):

"Nighmare in Laurel" (Mississippi) Was a story featured in Readers Digest...Train #154 rumbled across a RR crossing, through the sleeping town, during a steady downpour of rain. Within minutes after the first wheel fractured and derailed, the entire town was aflame. Numerous 32,000 gal LPG tank cars exploded, 17 in all, and one was propelled like a flaming missile 1000 ft in the air, where it crashed 1/4 mile away into a residential neighborhod, where numerous houses throughout the entire town became immediately engulfed in an inferno. One freight car wheelset was launched 1/4 mile, and came crashing through the roof of a sleeping familys bedroom, crashing through the 2nd and 1st floors of the house, and ended up in the basement. The story was pages, and pages long...

Good GOD!